


Underground

by feeding_geese



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-05
Updated: 2013-10-05
Packaged: 2017-12-28 11:41:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/991610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feeding_geese/pseuds/feeding_geese
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>District Twelve Tributes Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark have been pulled from the arena of the third Quarter Quell by District Thirteen.  They are told a rebellion is brewing and war is eminent.  Pushed into service as the Face and the Voice of the rebellion, they begin to wonder if Thirteen's war is the right battle to be fighting, or if it's time for Panem's Victors to mount a rebellion of their own.<br/>Universe Alteration: Katniss and Peeta in District Thirteen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Underground

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to beta princess and creative partner shesasurvivor.

I am suffocating in a cold, heavy darkness.

At first I think there must be a tree holding me down, but my legs are able to kick and thrash. It's my middle and my arms that feel restrained. Vines. I'm not sure how long I've been blacked out since I shot out the force field. It can't have been long if I'm still in the jungle. I have to get up, get moving, get to Peeta before they send the hovercrafts in. But my stupid eyes have to open first.

Open.

_OPEN!_

The whole world is red and antiseptic. All chrome and tubes and straps keeping me bound to a bed.

I'm too late.

I have to keep a cool head and a steady pulse. For some reason I'm still alive. A public execution makes the most sense at this point, unless Panem already thinks that I'm dead and I'm being kept for something else. Something worse. If that's the game we're playing now, Peeta could still be alive. I stare at the ceiling, trying not to trigger any cameras that may be trained on my body. Weigh our options. Chances are if he's alive, he's close. If I can get to him unnoticed, it could mean that we're not under surveillance. Between the two of us we might be able to get out of wherever we are. Haymitch's voice nags at the back of my mind. _And what then, sweetheart?_ We'll get to that later. Let's see how far we get. If Snow went to all this trouble to heal me, chances are he won't have me shot on sight.

I sit up slowly and gasp at the pain in my ribs. Not sharp enough for them to be broken, but they're at least bruised. It's going to be hell if I have to run. The red light illuminating the room begins to blink. A sensor. No time for being delicate then. I punch the device as hard as I can, breaking the thin plastic shield and killing the light. My hand throbs with tiny plastic shards poking out of my knuckles. I tear at a corner of the bedsheet with my teeth until I free a strip long enough to clumsily wrap my hand. The tubes pop out easily, but the loss of whatever they were filled with makes me dizzy. No windows, only one door. I bite back the urge to vomit and pull open drawers until I find a handful of syringes. I could blind or at least shock whoever's on the other side of the door. And if Peeta and I are caught, we could always inject air into an artery. I remember my mother telling me not to fool around with needles when I was little. That a rush of air could kill a person. It'd be quick, I tell myself.

There's no one outside the room. No windows out here either, just a cold, buzzing yellow light. I pad slowly in one direction, hugging the wall, wondering what it'll be like to have my tongue cut out. To spend the rest of my life as President Snow's personal drink girl. That wouldn't be too bad, actually, I think. At least I'd have access to his drinks. A smirk crosses my face.

Peeta would be another matter. I can't imagine him unable to use his voice. I tell myself that he'd find a way, he'd adapt like he did when they took his leg. How would we communicate? Would Snow even allow us to see each other? He'd probably require it, force me to look at what I'd done to Peeta, just like he did with Darius.

It must be very late. Or we must be very secluded because I haven't seen a single person. Maybe we're on a giant hovercraft and when we open the door we'll be met with nothing but air. What would be worse, the needles or jumping?

I hope Gale's had the sense to take our families into the woods by now. Though if everyone thinks we're dead they could be sitting in their homes mourning, which means the Peacekeepers could come for them as soon as Snow realizes I'm not in my room. I give a half a second's thought to going back before telling myself that it won't matter anyway. I lost the ability to keep them safe when I stepped into the first arena. So I press forward, wondering which of these doors l'm brave enough to open. Or do I continue down this hallway until I'm found?

My decision is made for me. Just ahead is an open door and a sigh I recognize even before I see its owner slumped over a table. I don't know if he's a trick or a prisoner himself. Or both. My feet stop in the doorway. His head is bowed, fingers digging in grizzled Seam hair for a minute before releasing with another sigh.

"Are you gonna come in or just stand there till they come looking for you?" He kicks out a chair from under the steel table in invitation. I decline the chair but there's no use standing in the hall anymore. My throat is dry when I try to speak.

"How...why am I still alive?" is what finally comes out.  His mouth quirks up and he snorts.

"Because Boggs is the best pilot Thirteen has to offer, that's why."

I rub at my forehead in hopes that the pressure will somehow force my brain to stop pounding. "Who is Boggs?" I sigh. I don't recognize the name from any of the mentors or victors Haymitch has mentioned in the past. I could go through the names district by district, One through Eleven. It's pointless, though, once his words catch up with me. "What do you mean, ‘Thirteen?’"

"Take a seat."

I stand as Haymitch tells me everything--or everything he's willing to tell me.  District Thirteen’s clandestine existence, the nuclear stalemate with the Capitol that has kept it safe for seventy-five years.  The plan to get Peeta and me there that has been in the works since the Quell was announced.  Of the twelve districts, only two weren’t actively working to save our lives. The current rebellion, one of half a dozen failed attempts in the past, that might actually have a chance of succeeding.  And the reason, he says, is standing in front of him now in a gray hospital gown.  

“You’re a symbol,” he says. “A rallying point.  The hardest part was getting the other districts to gather together without tipping our hand.  And with a handful of stupid berries, you did all the work for us,” he lets loose an exhausted laugh.  “Do you know how many intricate plans we burned through?  And you accomplished what we couldn’t completely by accident.”

His laughter makes me burn.  We were used by those who we finally felt we could trust.  For all of the backdoor deals Peeta and I had made with Haymitch to save each other, all along we were pieces of a larger game, a secret game played by everyone we thought was our ally.  He tells me how Johanna’s attack was meant to dislodge my tracker, how Beetee’s wire was intended to blow out the forcefield, the one I destroyed with my arrow.  He’s covered just about everything.  Except the one thought that pierces through my anger and confusion.

"Where's Peeta?" I breathe. The seconds it takes him to answer feel like a millennia.

“Burn Ward.”

I didn’t realize I had been holding my breath until I exhale so forcefully that I nearly faint.  “When the forcefield came down, the sky lit up.  The tree sparked and threw off a lot of burning debris.  They saved his arm, but it’s going to be out of commission for a while.  They’ll see how it looks in a day or two and decide if they want to do grafts.”  I can feel the bile rising in my throat again and I push it down with a hard swallow.  “You have Odair to thank for that, by the way.  We wouldn’t have gotten him if Finnick hadn’t pulled him off Brutus.  Man came looking for a fight, but I guess he didn't count on the boy being so fast with a knife." I have trouble picturing it myself. He'd managed to keep his hands clean through the first arena. Knowing what it feels like, what it costs you to take a person's life, even if they would kill you in a heartbeat, I know if it's not eating away at him now, it soon will be. Peeta's better than the rest of us, our hands soaked with red.

"So what do we do now?" I sigh. "Hide underground for the rest of our lives? Never go back to District Twelve?"

He leans forward and groans, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Sit down," he mumbles.

"I'm fine standing."

"Sit down!" he barks. I plop into the chair with a groan and a flash of pain in my middle. He doesn't speak for a long time.

"Bombing started right after you shot out the force field. Town and Seam simultaneously." My knuckles go white and I feel like I'm being held underwater. Town and Seam simultaneously. He doesn't mention Victors Village. Maybe he just doesn't want to say it. When I said goodbye to them before the Quell, I was the one supposed to die. And then I think about Haymitch, all the people he lost because he didn't follow the rules. Have I been so stupid to think I would come out any different? That I was special in some way? I'm feeling dizzy from the thought of blood and bombs and the loss of the IV in my arm. His voice sounds far away, locked behind a glass door, when he tells me.  "Yours made it out. Mother, sister, so-called cousins, aunt and all. That cousin of yours got whoever was left to the fence and into the woods. Thirteen found them by a lake three days later."

My head falls back against the hard steel of the chair. He must have dragged Hazelle and the kids all the way to the Village to get my mother and Prim. It's selfish that I should be so happy that they're alive. If the Capitol bombed Twelve, it wasn't a warning to us. It was a warning to Panem. Snow was giving the nation another District Thirteen. I can't imagine there's much of anything left.

"The boy didn't fare so well," Haymitch continues. "Whole bakery's gone, according to witnesses, and with it everything and everyone inside."

In District Eleven, all those lies ago, Peeta told me he had people he cared about back home, people he wanted to protect. Even if he thought they didn't need him, I'm sure he needed them. I never asked why he never moved them to his house. If he had, they would probably be in Thirteen now. Every now and then I'd look out my door and see his brothers coming and going, laughing and putting him in various wrestling holds until they teased a smile out of him. I had no love for his mother, but she didn’t deserve to suffer the way they all did. And she was still his mother; he'll mourn her. But his father was a kind man. If I had known how kind, I wouldn't have thrown his gift to me after that first reaping out the train window.

Haymitch sighs again. "We're gonna have to watch him for a while. To make sure he doesn't crack completely. He's got nothing left."

I bristle at that. "He's got us," I counter.

"Well lucky him," Haymitch snorts. Now that he's got me sitting down, he unwraps my hand and begins to pick out the larger shards.  "I see you found your monitor."  I don't even wince at the pain as he wraps my hand tighter.

"It's all my fault."  Normally I'd keep it to myself, but I'm too exhausted and I'm caught between keeping the words in and puking on the table.

"It's both of your faults," he says. Haymitch isn't one to throw blame around. He's stating what he sees as the facts without a sugar coating. Raw and real, I usually appreciate him being straight with me, except I don't believe him. I'm the one at fault here. I killed Peeta's family. And he's never going to forgive me. "I can't imagine the trouble the two of you would cause if you actually told each other what you were doing," he laughs. He ticks our offenses off on his fingers. "Hanging that dummy, painting the girl from Eleven, shooting out the force field, and that damn interview...from the Capitol's perspective you two left them no alternative, since your little family wouldn't shut up and die."

My family? As far as I know, their only offense to the Capitol is being related to me.

"How's that tiny miracle of yours?" He points to my stomach and I remember that I'm supposed to be pregnant. "You don't think that was just for sponsors, do you?"

Honestly what else could it have been? We made deals, plans to die for each other. Peeta was trying to call off the Games, or at least secure some outside support for me in the arena. "Whole Capitol doesn't know what's up and what's down. Peacekeepers are working double time shutting down protest movements--protest movements in the Capitol." He says it again, like I'm too dense to get it. Then he starts rifling through his flask pockets, but comes up empty with a sigh. "If Snow was smart as he used to be, he'd have cut that boy's tongue out after he told you to show off those berries to the cameras. But that's what happens with absolute power," he checks a pocket again, just to be sure. "After a while you start to get cozy."

I'm not comfortable sharing blame, but I can see that dark guilt in Haymitch's eyes that I recognize in the mirror. He's thinking about it, too. All the things he's done in the past to taunt Snow into making an example of Twelve. I suppose the anger and the fire will come soon enough; for now there's just failure.

"What happens now?" I breathe.

"Now you go back to your room--your room--and focus on healing those ribs. Everyone else is asleep anyways, so there's no use poking around, understand?"

My ribs ache, my stomach churns, and my head pounds.  I drag myself down the hall, trying to push Haymitch's words into the background and focus instead on how I'm going to sleep, feeling how I feel and knowing what I know.  When I notice the ward labels painted above the doors, I realize that there's only one way I'll get any rest tonight.

The room's empty except for the form laid out in the bed. There's no red light, no sensor here. I'm not sure how to approach this--if I should wake him up or just crawl in. Maybe it's a bad idea altogether. Maybe I should just go back to my own bed.

"Would you take out the morphling, please?" he whispers in the darkness. From the faint light through the doors I can see the shine of his eyes.

"Did I wake you up?"

He gives a soft laugh. "What do you think?"

I pull the drip out as gently as I can, making him wince. "Took you long enough to come here," he croaks hoarsely. After Haymitch described the tree blowing I was expecting much worse, but he's in one piece and the parts of him I can see in the dim light look pretty decent for someone who's been through two arenas.

"I didn't see you running to my ward," I murmur, pushing back his hair to examine some stitched-up lacerations on his forehead. It must hurt to laugh, but he does it anyway.

"I'm lucky I can move at all. Everything feels like it's on fire most of the time." Peeta reaches up with his good arm and cups my cheek.  His hand is warm, the callous on his thumb brushing the red beneath my eyes.  His smile is the first good thing I've seen since waking. "You look horrible," he chuckles.  I wrap my fingers around his wrist, feel his pulse beating.

"Haymitch said you were burned pretty badly..." He raises his right arm slowly and I see what Haymitch was talking about. His forearm looks like melted wax. The bile threatens to come up again. I close my eyes for a second, but the image is burned into my brain already, so I try to focus on his face. Peeta doesn't miss the sour look I must be wearing.

"Not too bad," he grins. "It missed my hand for the most part." It's an overly optimistic assessment from my point of view. Then again, I haven't given the Capitol any of my body parts.

He pulls back the covers and pats the mattress.

"Left side?" I ask.

"It's the side that hurts the least."

I sit on the edge of the mattress, still not sure if I should stay. "Does it still hurt a lot?" It's a stupid question. Of course it hurts.

"Not as much," he adjusts to sit up a bit. "They've got me on so many drugs I'm not even completely sure you're actually here." His breath becomes ragged and quick and his eyes screw shut.

"You shouldn't be off the morphling." I take the tube and clumsily try to stuff it back into his arm.

"You're one to talk," he grabs it from my fingers after flinching twice from my attempts and slots it easily into the vein, turning the dial that starts the medicine flowing again. Neither of us want to be on it but I can see the relief on his face when the drug starts working. "I bet you're not even cleared to move."

"It's not so bad.  You got it worse."

"Seems to be the pattern." I can't match his wry smile. It's an awful thing to say. Awful and true. "You should lie down. Try to sleep."

The covers are cool and he's warm.  It's like the train.  I can feel myself relax as soon as my head hits his chest. It's a little awkward--I have to angle my chest away from his body to avoid contact with my bruised ribs. I drape my leg over his and lock my foot around his ankle, freezing when I come into contact with the cool metal. Normally I'm on the other side. "Is, um, is this okay?" We've slept like this before, all tangled up, but I've never had such direct contact with his prosthetic. It's a part of him and at the same time it isn’t. I'm not sure how I feel about touching it. I'm not sure if he wants me touching it, either.

"You're on the seam a little." He reaches down and, with some trepidation, grabs me under my knee with his bad arm, moving my leg to ease the pressure off the seam. "Okay?" he whispers. The position is actually better; with my knee up to his stomach I can shift my ribs further back. My rear's off the bed a bit. It’s not like the huge Training Center beds we slept in. It's different, but okay. I nod. He leaves his hand on my knee, making little circles on it over the blanket.  He started doing this on the Victory Tour. I think it started as this nervous pattern he has, but once he realized it put me out, he kept doing it.

"I'm sorry,” I whisper. “About the force field."

He shakes his head. "Don't be stupid. You’re alive and I’m alive and we wouldn't be if you hadn't shot through the field. So it's okay."

But it isn't. "I'm sorry."

"I just said--"

"About your family."

A shuddering breath.

"Can we just go to sleep, Katniss?"  

We don’t say anything else, but I feel him reach over and turn his morphling drip up a little.  In the silence, I tally up the people I can trust and I'm amazed how much my list has shrunk in just a few hours. There's Peeta, that's one. Prim, of course. And Gale. Three names. Three people who I can rely on completely.  The thought sticks to the inside of my brain and stays even in my sleep.


End file.
